History of Central Asia

Timur
 
While the Golden Horde was beginning to enter its long decline in the late 14th century, 
the 
demise
 of Chagataid rule in the area between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya was 
taking place as a result of the rise of 
Timur
. Under Timur’s leadership the Turko-Mongol 
tribes located in the basins of the two rivers were first united. With the assistance of 
these tribes he expanded into the neighbouring regions of Khorāsān, Sīstān, Khwārezm, 
and Mughulistān before embarking upon extensive campaigning in what are now Iran 
and Iraq, eastern Turkey, and the Caucasus region. In addition, he launched two 
successful attacks on his 
erstwhile
 protégé, Tokhtamysh, ruler of the Golden Horde. In 
1398–99 Timur invaded northern India and sacked Delhi, and between 1399 and 1402 
he turned westward again to harry the Egyptian Mamluks in Syria and the Ottoman 
sultan 
Bayezid I
, whom he captured in battle near Ankara. At the time of his death at 
Otrar on the Syr Darya in 1405, Timur was leading his forces on an invasion of China. 
Timur never assumed openly the full attributes of 
sovereignty
, contenting himself with 
the title of emir while upholding the fictional authority of a series of puppet khans of the 
line of Chagatai, to whom he claimed kinship by marriage; in consequence he styled 
himself güregen, meaning “son-in-law” (i.e., of the Chagataid khan). He seems to have 
lacked the innate administrative capacity or the foresight of Genghis Khan, and after 
Timur’s death his conquests were disputed among his numerous progeny. In the 
ensuing struggles his fourth son, 
Shāh Rukh
 (1407–47), emerged victorious. He 
abandoned his father’s capital of Samarkand for Herāt in Khorāsān (now in western 
Afghanistan), where he ruled in great splendour, leaving his son, 
Ulūgh Beg
, as his 
deputy in the former capital. Ulūgh Beg’s rule in 
Samarkand
 between 1409 and 1447 
probably brought a considerable measure of tranquility to the long-troubled region. An 
enthusiastic astronomer and the builder of a celebrated observatory, Ulūgh Beg ensured 
that during his lifetime Samarkand would be a major centre of scientific learning, 
especially in astronomy and mathematics. He was killed on the orders of his son, ʿAbd 
al-Laṭīf, in 1449. 
Throughout the second half of the 15th century, the western part of Central Asia was 
divided into a number of rival principalities ruled by descendants of Timur, among 
which Bukhara and Samarkand were the most important. The courts of these rulers 
witnessed an extraordinary cultural florescence in literature, the arts, and architecture, 
with 
Chagatai Turkish
, a dialect derived partly from Khakani, the language spoken at the 
Karakhanid court (and a 
precursor
 of modern 
Uzbek
), emerging as a flexible vehicle for 
sophisticated literary expression. These Timurid epigones, however, were locked in 

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unceasing rivalry with each other and were unable to combine against intruders from 
beyond their frontiers. By the close of the century, therefore, all the Timurid possessions 
in Central Asia had passed into the hands of the Uzbeks.